I’ll make a bet with you. If you’re a pilot with an IFR rating, you’re filing your flight plan wrong. If you’re a controller that puts flight plans in the computer (and virtually all do), you’re doing it wrong. If you’re a disinterested party, don’t worry (well, don’t worry too much). They aren’t acting in bad faith (at least the vast majority) and it isn’t really dangerous. But it illustrates what I consider a very important point about saving the ERAM project so I’m going to talk about it.

Let’s start with the correct way to file a flight plan. The rules are in the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) What’s that? The AIM doesn’t have rules? Sure it does. All those that just told themselves “The AIM is not regulatory”, give yourself a whack on the knuckles with a ruler for me. Let me put this in bold letters to make my point; I don’t care if you are legally right because you are wrong.